


One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Marriage, Prayer, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6755407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ghost story in two parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted

September 1862

“Nurse Mary?”

Mary set down the basin and cloth on the table beside Major Allan. He was asleep, or something like it, and she had made him as clean and comfortable as she could; he’d been given his dose of morphine a quarter-hour past and now lay quietly. Sparing a thought for Jedediah, who still had some days and nights filled with an insidious, destructive longing, she thanked God for the needle and the surcease from pain it delivered. She could hardly imagine what Mansion House would be without it, how any of them could survive the suffering without the promise of temporary oblivion. She thought of the red poppy in the field with its black heart and how the men who needed it most carried its colors upon their bodies—the blood and soot of minie shot and battle, sometimes the only colors they carried, save their sclera, glowing white against their dirt-caked cheeks, every man’s iris—blue, hazel, green as grass like the boy from Maine who’d died after supper—dark, pupils blown. 

She shook her head a little to clear it. Antietam had been nearly a week ago now, but the hospital still felt as it had shortly after, the work and misery raised to a pitch she hadn’t imagined, couldn’t imagine they might sustain. They all slept little and even the stalwarts-- Matron Brannan, Samuel, little, wiry Isaac Watts-- were showing signs of the burden. Mary had found Samuel half-asleep on a hallway bench with Isaac nestled by him; the boy was built like a marionette, all jostling angles and the sharp curve of his child’s jaw without a hint of the man to come, and could not have been a comfortable companion, but she saw Samuel appeared at ease, his own head tilted back, the strong muscles of his neck clear, his collar sweat-stained. Matron had taken to sudden pauses, where she looked across the hallway, through the ward, as if she saw another world opening before them, sometimes yielding, sometimes beckoning. The second time, Mary had gently touched her elbow and Matron said, almost gruffly, “Sometimes the Sight… I wish, I pray it would pass me over.” Mary had given her a questioning glance and Matron muttered, “No, Bridget, not now,” to herself or Mary, she wasn’t clear. 

Mary had begun to check on Jed more assiduously; she was less concerned about propriety and more that the needle would call him back, but his eyes remained only tired, a little bloodshot. The suffering there was the boys’ reflected pain, his own frustration at his medicine’s short-comings. Jed had grasped her concern after a few days of her searching looks, of extra cups of hot coffee always at hand, of fresh linen laid out for him by an orderly she freed by undertaking his own menial tasks a few moments a day. 

Jed had taken her aside just this morning and said, “Dear Mary, it’s all right—I am safe, I know how to manage this work. There is no greater risk for me here—I don’t want the needle any more than any other day. I see what you are doing but you mustn’t worry about me.” His dark hair was tousled and she felt a flash of desire to straighten his curls, then stroke one finger across his beard.

With a bit of her old spirit, sass and vinegar her father had always called it and chuckled at it so, she had replied, “I’ll worry if I wish and you’ll not stop me! I’m still Head Nurse of this hospital, I think!” but he had seen how she was putting it on to cheer him and had simply laid one not-quite-clean hand against her cheek and said, “Sweetheart, of course you are,” and then had walked away, with the brisk pace of a healthy man, to the next surgery.

Now hours later, days and weeks later it seemed though she knew it wasn’t true, little black-haired Private Murphy, a New York boy by way of County Cork, was calling for her and she must answer. He said he was nineteen but she wasn’t sure—it was possible he was only small by nature and a lifetime of scanty food, but she saw the look in his eyes as they followed her about, a boy looking for his mother. Last night, she had settled him with a soft “Hush, Michael” when he called for his mam, and she had seen the relief of it on his face as he slipped deeper in sleep.

“Yes, Private Murphy, what do you need?” she replied, turning towards him. Shadows were collecting in the room as night fell, first blue before full darkness, and the white muslin curtains moved a little as the coolness of evening stole into the room. Mary breathed a tiny sigh of relief, feeling the unpleasant stickiness of sweat under her stays begin to abate. 

“Do you believe in ghosts, Nurse Mary?” the boy asked.

“I beg your pardon?” she replied, surprised, having expected a request for water or more medicine.

“It’s just, them curtains in the night, and all the men screamin’ and cryin’ out, and then the ones who go all quiet. Last night I looked over and Johnny Brewster was lookin’ at me and then I saw-- he was dead! his dead eyes just starin’ at me—seems to me this place must be haunted, and it gets so I can hardly sleep, I think a ghost will come and get me,” he broke off, his voice low, ashamed. He was a boy who had already seen too much and now there was little respite for him, the night full of simple and complicated horrors. She thought how he had likely enjoyed sharing ghost stories with his schoolmates or brothers, each trying to outdo the other for ghoulish gruesomeness and now all he wanted in the night was his mother.

“I believe you needn’t worry about ghosts, Michael. All night long, the nurses are here to look after you--” she began, but he interrupted.

“You’ve got to sleep, haven’t you? That’s when they’ll get me!” He was becoming frantic but trying to keep his voice down, the boy at war with the man.

“Michael, even when the nurses sleep, when the whole hospital is asleep, God is holding you in the palm of His hand and will never let you come to harm. When you say your prayers at night, you remember that—God is already there, has been there the whole time,” she said. He looked a little less wild.

“Maybe, Nurse Mary, maybe you could pray with me a little? Me mam would before we’d all go to sleep, the lot of us—she would say her rosary and tell us we were all blessed and to sleep already. Maybe if you prayed that with me?” he asked shyly.

“I will find one of the nuns for you, then, they are more familiar than I am with the Catholic prayers. Perhaps Sister Isabella or Sister Catherine?” she offered, mentioning two of the younger, gentler nuns who had more patience for a boy whose mind was troubled more than his body.

“No, not them. You—please, Nurse Mary? I can teach you the Hail Mary if you don’t know it, it’s easy,” he said eagerly. She thought his parish priest would smile to hear Murphy now; he had the look of a scamp about him when he didn’t seem terrified or in pain.

“I know it, I’ve heard the nuns say it with the men. I haven’t a rosary though—so we’ll perhaps just muddle through and then you will have a good sleep. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace…’” she began and he joined her, reaching out his hand to be held. She clasped it lightly and recited the prayer carefully, slowly, thinking the Holy Mother would forgive a non-believer for invoking her, as she was helping a child to sleep. When they finished, he was not fully asleep, but his eyelids were heavy. “The palm of His hand,” she whispered and got up to leave the ward.

As she walked through the doorway, she saw the older nun who was the Mother Superior for the group at Mansion House. Mary generally spoke to her quickly and efficiently about how to deploy the nuns, which patients needed someone to sit by them through the night. She had never spent much time regarding Mother Veronica but she looked at her now, preparing an apology; she felt Mother Veronica might not have appreciated a Unitarian leading a Catholic man in Catholic prayer. As she opened her mouth to speak, she noticed Mother Veronica’s eyes—a warm amber like clover honey. Beneath her wimple, she had a broad, white brow and delicately arched eyebrows.

“Mother Veronica, I hope I haven’t offended you—Private Murphy wanted to pray, wanted me to say the ‘Hail Mary’ with him and I offered to find one of the nuns, but he said no. I am afraid I have overstepped,” she said, rushing a little to finish.

“Nurse Phinney, I think we can dispense with some of the formalities. You need not reproach yourself or worry that I am distressed—you did not put on a cassock and try to serve Communion wine and wafers. I cannot think that the Virgin Mother or her Son would be unhappy to see someone moved to pray to them. I will pray for you tonight myself and perhaps, some day when we have regained a measure of order here, you might join me in contemplation,” the nun suggested. Mary nodded in agreement, though she was hardly able to imagine the calm Mother Veronica alluded to. The nun returned to her task, rearranging some contraption of pulleys Hale insisted they use; Mary smiled to see it, remembering the torrent of derision Jed had unleashed when Hale had first explained it, making it clear that Paris had moved far beyond that equipment, underscoring it with a few perfectly accented French words which Hale had to pretend to understand.

She heard the chime of the clock in the hall and hurried a little to her pantry. She had kept it even after Bullen’s death—it was no longer necessary but she found it convenient as did Matron Brannan. She had taken to arranging a late evening meal she set out in the officers’ dining room. Hale and Anne Hastings still ate their meals at the strike of the gong, full meals with thick cuts of meat and boiled vegetables, finished off with cakes and coffee, but Jed and Summers worked steadily through the days and both had found the additional evening meal she served sustaining. She was not eating regularly, she admitted to herself, and she would take more when she sat with Jed. His table manners were very fine and his pleasure in the meal leant him a joviality she would not have otherwise expected during the recent strain. Under his encouraging gaze, she found herself finishing all the food on her plate and smiling when he served her another portion, or cut a large slice of pie for her sweet.

Summers had eaten and announced he was off to bed before Jed came in the room. Every night, Jed looked in as if he were unsure she would be there waiting for him. Without letting herself think very carefully about what would need to transpire for it to be true, she wished he would be easy enough with her to know she would be there, would not have simply left him a covered plate and cooling cup of coffee.

“Mary, you’re here,” he said, the gladness smoothing the edge of fatigue in his voice. She saw his face as the brightest spot in the room; a large mirror above the fireplace, draped with some sort of bunting, reflected the light from the lamps, but even more, the shadows of the night.

“Yes, of course. It’s time you sat down for your supper, or whatever we should call this meal. I’m sorry it isn’t more—I’m sure it’s not what you’re accustomed to.” Mary tried to modulate her tone as she finished. Jed would think she was searching for a compliment or reassurance when she truly felt disappointed that she couldn’t prepare a more elegant meal for him-- sweetbreads stewed with cream and thyme, pigeon with green peas, blanc-mange and apple charlotte.

“I’m sure it’s more than I deserve—it’s not the Head Nurse’s responsibility to cook the officers’ meals. Thank you, Mary,” he said. She sat down with him and they began to eat, Jed making quick work of the meal. He placed his cutlery down carefully, then began drinking the hot coffee in between bites of custard.

“This is good, Mary. I don’t know when you found the time to prepare it all.” She realized she liked to see him eat, the domesticity suiting them both at the end of the long day. 

“I’m not occupied as you are—my tasks are more variable. A boy may wait a few minutes to have his face wiped or linens changed. You haven’t that same luxury when you are operating,” she replied, pleased nonetheless by the praise.

“Still, you find new ways every day to care for us all. I meant to ask you to assist on a surgery earlier today and Mother Veronica stopped me. She said you were too busy and shooed me off, said Nurse Hastings was available. What were you doing? I’ve never known Mother Veronica to take such an interest,” he said. He was leaning back in his chair now, one hand curved around the coffee cup, legs neatly crossed at the ankle. Mary felt a sudden dank chill in the room and shivered.

“Oh, Private Murphy asked me whether I believe in ghosts,” she replied.

Jed laughed aloud, “Truly? I suffered through Anne Hastings’s latest set of Crimean memories during a double amputation so you could tell Murphy you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“I didn’t tell him that,” Mary said.

“Wait. You do? Believe in ghosts? My practical, Yankee Mary Phinney believes in ghosts?” Jed said incredulously.

“No, Jedediah, I don’t believe in ghosts but that was not what Michael Murphy was truly asking. He is just barely nineteen years old and he misses his mother more than anything. He is terrified to go to sleep at night and the man next to him died in his bed yesterday, in front of him-- the latest of a large number of men to die right before him. I told him he was safe,” she said evenly.

“I suspect you did more than that, Mary.” He looked at her with such a warm smile. “May I ask what you said?”

“I told him the nurses would watch over him and even while we slept, God would hold him in the palm of His hand. And then he asked me to pray with him so we said the Hail Mary. And that was that. I offered to get one of the nuns, but he didn’t want them.” 

“Oh, Mary. Of course not, he wanted you,” Jed replied and there was nothing to suggest he thought the boy’s desire was inappropriate or illicit. Still, the way it felt to hear him say “wanted!” 

“How do you know? How do you know so well what to do? How Murphy needs the palm of God’s hand, and Summers’s needs a plate and no company, how I need—what I need?” She knew he was asking more than one question but she decided to answer anyway.

“Do you recall that argument you had with Hale? I know, there have been so many—the one about the physician’s greatest skill, what sets the best physicians apart? You said, without hesitation, diagnosis and the curiosity and patience to make the most accurate one. Hale said, well, I don’t remember exactly what because it made very little sense, he just wanted to argue with you, I think perhaps he argued for dexterity, but-- I think you were right. Without the true diagnosis, the patient is doomed—the treatment will never be correct. Physicians are trained to make diagnoses and the best ones are gifted at it, so skilled at reading the patient’s body, all the smallest signs and changes, putting it together—I have seen you save men’s lives that way, men Hale and Summers would have, well, condemned with their ignorance, their incuriosity, their inattention,” she paused and took a breath. He was listening intently, his dark eyes gleaming in the lamplight. “Nurses must diagnose—but we are not focused on the body as much as the soul, what the patient’s heart is crying out for. I may only dispense the medicines you order, but I can see when a boy needs to hold my hand, to be sung to, to have me sit beside him. I have worked at this for so long-- my husband’s sickbed was my Paris hospital. Even Anne, harridan that she is, is quite skilled at it, this… attunement. The men are never so bothered by her as we are, you see. If I am to be a good nurse, I must divine the heart’s desire of every patient here and if I am to be a good Head Nurse, I must do so with the staff as well.”

Mary glanced around the room. There were no glimmers in the great gilt-framed mirror of Bloody Mary or any other disembodied fiend. No draft crept along the floor as a harbinger of demonic invasion. The mahogany doors did not creak. She was alone with Jed, their meal finished, the crumbs scattered on the table. Her feet in their worn brown boots peeped from beneath her stained hem, her body angled towards his. He waited for her, engaged, his face eager, the grey at his temples and peppering his beard belied by his lively eyes. She would risk it.

“I do not know what you want because I am a good nurse, though I think I am. I try to be. But not with you. With you, I do not try to be a nurse, good or otherwise—I am only ever being myself, only Mary, and if I am giving you your heart’s desire you are fortunate, since I am selfishly following my own heart’s desire first. I think I should not say any more, I have said too much already--”

And there she meant to stop, and did so, though not as she had intended. For Jed had moved so quickly beside her, and taken her face in his two hands—he looked at her, a dark, tender question, and then answered, put his soft mouth upon hers, to swallow all the words. She felt his beard against her cheek and the heat of him contagious—it poured through her, from breast to belly, across her hips and to every extremity. Her arms were wound round his neck as he kissed her and she him, again and again, and through the rush of the blood in their ears and the sweet, thrilled gasps she made, neither heard the silvery trill of laughter in the hallway, silvery laughter never voiced by living throat.

 

September 1870

“Who was it?” Jed asked from the bed. He had thought about turning up the lamp, putting on his wire spectacles and reading until she returned, but had guessed she would not be very long. He’d listened to her while he’d idly watched the pane of moonlight on the coverlet; she murmured, ever more quietly, then he’d heard the door close, a little snick as the metal lock of the glass doorknob found its match in the frame. She’d walked slowly down the hall and he could tell she was tired by her tread. It was late, after midnight.

“Daniel. He had a nightmare and he had to tell me all the details before he could settle down again,” she said as she climbed back in the bed. It was quite warm for September in Boston and she still wore her summer nightdress, white muslin with short sleeves like lilies, and an open neck trimmed with little buttons down the placket. He liked it because he could stroke her bare arms, from her shoulders all the way to her fingertips, could enjoy the smoothness of her skin and yet the crucial disruption of her wedding band, the gold warmed by her skin, the gems still cool.

“Did he wake up Timothy?” Though Jed supposed not, she would still be in the nursery then. Daniel could be calmed down with a conversation but Timothy would need to be rocked in her arms, missing the automatic nursing he would have received before he was weaned. Jed missed it too, missed seeing his son at his mother’s breast, the baby so intent, one small hand pressed against Mary’s sternum. When she nursed him in their bed, Jed could hear the small, important sound of Timothy’s swallow, the working of it in the delicate underside of the baby’s jaw. And Mary! She would curve her body around her baby and he thought she would only ever have eyes for that little face with his dark eyes and dark curls, but she would look up at Jed and smile and oh!—he would save the kiss he wanted to give her then for the time the baby lay sprawled in his crib and she could be, for some moments, his dearest love and not, primarily, Mamma.

“No,” she yawned, and moved about in the bed, searching for a way to arrange herself.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t hear him,” Jed said.

“Oh, mother’s ears—I hear them even when they don’t cry. I was already awake, or near enough,” she shifted, pulled her night plait from where it had gotten caught, “But please, Jed, no more ghost stories! That was the nightmare, again! I know he asks you, he begs you, but he is just a little boy and he doesn’t realize--”

“Yes, well, what did you tell him tonight? Or did you just sing? I thought I heard you talking,” he said, feeling sorry she had been awakened, sorry that Daniel had had a bad dream, but very much enjoying this found time with her, their voices quiet and unrushed in the moonlight.

“I told him God would hold him in the palm of His hand. And when he gave me that skeptical look of yours, I told him Papa would growl very loudly because I would make sure there was no custard for him and that would scare away even the wickedest ghost,” she finished. He heard the smile in her voice but couldn’t see it. Her back was to him, his chest bare against her. He’d thrown off the nightshirt shortly after they retired, too hot with the Indian summer air and Mary’s body both pressing him. She was always warmer when she was pregnant, and he put his arm around her to rest his hand on her firm belly. The baby within her moved and then he felt the soft thump of a kick. He kissed the nape of her neck where her plait had fallen away.

“You are a good mother, Molly. I don’t think my own mother ever came to me in the night for a nightmare or when I was taken sick—it was always my mammy or one of her daughters, Young Tabitha mostly. I’m glad for the boys—it’s right their mother comes when they call. But you will need to rest tomorrow—I know this little one is keeping you up at night,” he said. He hoped for a girl this time but Mary would say only that she wanted a healthy baby and maybe an easier delivery, if she were asking for anything. She referred to the baby as a boy and would laugh when he pointed it out, noting that one or the other of them would be right and they’d know soon enough.

“Well, he does seem busiest when I am ready to sleep,” she said. He stroked her round belly through the gown, hitched it up to slide his hand across her bare thigh. She sighed. She was too tired, needed sleep more than anything else, but he still enjoyed the feel of her round bottom pressed against him, stirring him, though not to action. Not tonight, he amended.

“I will tell Patty to mind them, or Mrs. Hutchins, so you can rest in the morning. Patty can help me get them ready and I will take them out to feed the ducks in the park,” he offered. The air would be fresh and the boys would be so excited. He would need to bring a second sack of stale bread when they used up the first one on the first duck they found. He mustn’t lose Daniel’s cap again though or Mary would fuss.

“I thought you had a lecture tomorrow,” she said, easing back against him even further. She smelled like milk and lavender, sweet and clean and his alone.

“It’s at eleven and I was only going to the clinic first to work on the case report beforehand. Let me take the boys and give you a quiet morning. Maybe, if I am very good and don’t tell any more ghost stories, you will make me my own custard,” Jed laughed, happy, his wife in his arms, his children asleep in their beds, all of them held in the palm of God’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I got the prompt for this story from my own oldest child. I quickly realized I didn't really want to write a traditional ghost story but I had fun finding ways to include some classic elements. The second part is basically offscreen kidfic, which made sense for me given the origin of the story. Antietam was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War and I checked (probably unnecessarily!) that were there multiple divisions from New York for Michael Murphy to hale from. I have included several secondary characters and a few of my own creation. The dishes that Mary imagines making are all from 19th century recipes I found online-- the pigeon was served at Delmonico's in 1837 and stayed on the menu for years.


End file.
